In recent years, a broadcasting station for FM broadcast or the like increasingly provides the information regarding the program, along with the normal broadcast, through a Web site to the user. For example, a service for publicizing a list of numbers or artist names of musical compositions broadcast or scheduled to broadcast in the program on the Web site is well known. The user viewing the broadcast can make access to the Web site to know the number or artist name of the musical composition by designating the broadcast date and time or program name, when there is any favorite musical composition in the broadcast musical compositions. For example, a music CD (Compact Disc) containing the musical composition can be purchased at a CD shop.
Recently, it is conceived that a home audio apparatus or portable information processing terminal or the like capable of receiving the radio broadcast has a function of gaining access to the server for providing the above service to acquire and display the musical composition information. In this case, for example, the user makes a predetermined operation on the audio apparatus to enable the audio apparatus to gain access to the server, when there is any favorite musical composition broadcast in the radio program being received by the audio apparatus. Thereby, the audio apparatus acquires the information regarding the musical composition, displays it on the screen, and notifies it to the user. It is also suggested that, when it is desired to know the information of musical composition broadcast in the past, the user designates the date and time zone on the audio apparatus, and the audio apparatus receives the information of musical composition or its list retrieved on the server side in accordance with this designation, and displays it on the screen.
As a technology related with the prior art, there was a following retrieval apparatus in which the retrieval operation was simplified to shorten the time required for retrieval. This retrieval apparatus has retrieving means for retrieving an explanatory sentence for a retrieval word input by inputting means from the storage medium, and displays a list for the retrieval word. And the explanatory sentence corresponding to the retrieval word selected by the user is retrieved from the list, and displayed. When the user performs an input operation on a specific input part while the explanatory sentence is displayed, the display means is switched from the display screen of explanatory sentence to the input screen of retrieval word (e.g., refer to patent document 1).
[Patent Document 1] Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 10-105569 (paragraphs [0021] to [0026], FIG. 1)
By the way, when the user accesses the server to retrieve the musical composition and its list by designating the date and time zone, the information of the musical composition may not be obtained as the retrieval result. For example, when the user remembers the broadcast time zone falsely, this situation occurs, in which it is natural that the retrieval key such as date or time zone is changed, and retransmitted to the server. This operation is easily performed on the PC. However, the audio apparatus, portable information terminal or the like has a smaller number of input keys than the PC or the like and does not allow the character input, resulting in a problem that this operation is not easily made.